


Forced Silence

by TooMuchTimeinSpace



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: During Canon, Gen, Piano, post car accident, pre kamar-taj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 04:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooMuchTimeinSpace/pseuds/TooMuchTimeinSpace
Summary: Before he could truly think through what he was doing he approached the piano and placed trembling fingers on glistening white keys. No matter how hard he willed his hands to still they kept shaking. All he wanted to hear was a scale, just eight simple notes in a steady pattern, one of the simplest things that could be done. Yet he couldn't do it.





	Forced Silence

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a really short piece that I wrote after I noticed that one of the first things to disappear from Stephen's apartment after the accident was his piano. 
> 
> Originally posted on fanfiction.net 6/12/17

Stephen had always loved the piano, ever since he'd started learning when he was six. Being a professional concert pianist had even been his second choice in careers, and when he'd been especially young he had even naively thought he could do that and be a doctor. This hadn't occurred of course, but he continued to play. It relaxed him to play, to get lost in the music entirely. He'd even played in restaurants and bars every now and again for the money, to help pay for med school. Then when he'd became a successful neurosurgeon and bought a fancy high-rise apartment, one of the first things he'd bought to put in it was a beautiful grand piano. However, he played less and less as he became more and more successful, but every now and then he would sit down and play.

Then the accident happened.

Now Stephen glanced at the piano for the first time in quite a while. Before he could truly think through what he was doing he approached the beautiful instrument and placed trembling fingers on glistening white keys. No matter how hard he willed his hands to still they kept shaking. He tried to play with bated breath. All he wanted to hear was a scale, just eight simple notes in a steady pattern, one of the simplest things that could be done. Yet he couldn't do it. His fingers moved clumsily, shakily, banging out the wrong notes at the wrong time. He pulled his hand away as if burned and turned away from the piano. He glared angrily at his hands, his always shaking hands. Tears welled up that he refused to let fall, and he wanted to scream his frustration, but bit down hard on his lower lip instead. He walked away, into his bedroom, banging the door shut behind him.

He didn't approach the piano again, couldn't come within five feet of it. He sold the piano to the first person who offered to buy it. He didn't care, he just wanted it gone. His apartment felt emptier without it though, the space it used to occupy now an empty void, and the loss of his beloved piano just seemed to signify that there was no hope of regaining the use of his broken hands.


End file.
